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Dessert

Mock Cherry Pie

A sweet pie made with flour, sugar, hot water, butter, cherries, vanilla, and pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 890 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mock Cherry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Mix flour and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Pour hot water into the mixture and add butter.

  3. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in cherries and vanilla.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the filling into a pastry-lined pie dish.

  2. Cover with strips of pastry on top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Vanilla + cherrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the hot water and sugar mixture into a set filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the cherries.
Cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour of the pie.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until thickened. Flour only thickens once its starch has been heated in liquid long enough to swell and gel. Stopping too early leaves a runny filling that soaks the pastry, so cook until the mixture visibly thickens before removing it from the heat.

Swap the cherry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vanilla, flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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